


Howling So You Know You Got Me

by SC182



Series: Animal Kingdom ain't got nothing on us [2]
Category: Fast Five (2011), Fast and the Furious Series
Genre: F/M, M/M, Pack Dynamics, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-20
Updated: 2012-07-20
Packaged: 2017-11-10 07:56:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SC182/pseuds/SC182
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s more than a connection that draws them together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Howling So You Know You Got Me

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Property of Universal, Justin Lin and Gary S. Thompson. I'm just borrowing them for a moment.
> 
> A/N: Connecting piece from the end of Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and the back story to Dom and Brian becoming DomandBrian. Titled inspired by The Roots ft. Jill Scott, "You Got Me".

 

The warehouse was calm and quiet, cold to his senses. Everyone had gone ahead, especially Mia, which had made him happy. Tonight had been about following through on instinct and showing where his claim lay.  
  
He crossed the body of the warehouse without any fear. The darkness didn’t bother him a bit; his eyes were made for it. All that bristling from earlier had settled down, flowed through his veins as the last dredges of amped adrenaline; even his aches and pains--the cut below his eyes, the gouge on his leg, felt satisfying in a familiar sense. His stride was quite strong and deliberately despite all of this.  
  
The shower called his name. Forget all those cat jokes about not liking water, Brian O’Conner loved the water. He’d surf, swim—hell, doggy-paddle everyday if he had the opportunity. The little shower at the back of the warehouse’s office didn’t allow for much fun, as it was Superman-photo booth tiny. Just the thought of sprays of hot water and semi-decent water pressure made him want to stretch out his back and curl his tail.  
  
If Brian had been in shifted form, his tail would have swung low, swaying listlessly like an unmanned rudder, sweeping the concrete floor every so often as a low rumble settled in his chest. Brian pulled himself out his daydream. The last thing he needed was to be caught human or shifted, awash in Hobbs’ scent.  
  
Reaching the office would have been a relief, if not for him catching the pair of floating silver eyes drilling into him from across the room.  
  
Well, shit.  
  
Melting into the darkness, a fine trick that it was, had given him the upper hand tonight. Of course, Dom, Mr. Numero Uno darkness stealth stalker himself, would flip his magical bag of tricks inside and out when he realized that Brian wasn’t on the boat, and use the same trick to track down and pounce on his missing mate.  
  
A worst case scenario didn’t get shoddier than this. Brian could pretend that he hadn’t seen Dom, if not for the sudden stiffness in his shoulders and the change in his scent. To add the craptastic cherry to the cake were the clothes he’d been tramping around Rio in, which were Hobbs, and he smelled like he’d been rolling around with Hobbs all night long. The all night long part was wrong. It hadn’t taken that long to bring Hobbs down a peg or two, but he did smell like he’d taken a bath in Hobbs fountainous sweat.  
  
And Brian grimaced at the thought. _Gross, seriously, seriously, gross._  
  
Brian faced Dom with his back straight and prepared for him to make his move. This was a song and dance Brian was all too familiar with; a song and dance that he always orchestrated with Dom, his energy ever ready to crest with the rising inevitable cresendo of their clash.  
  


* * *

  
_Post-Prison Break_  
  
Darkness blanketed the beach, though the sands glowed bright---white like the stars blazing in the sky beyond the clouds. For a mile in either direction, he had the stretch of beach to himself. Just him standing still, letting the breeze ruffle over him, through his hair and down his back. The wind solicited mild shivers as he breathed in the scents of heavy salt water and charred wood from a long dead pyre at the edge of the thin line of palm trees behind him.  
  
It wasn’t a full moon, not for another couple of weeks, but it was on nights like these that howling songs would rise across the air to reach their eternally distant Mother Moon. Brian clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth to make a sound to interrupt the silence.  
  
The problem with howling at the moon was that it only worked for dogs and all of those of the various dog varieties. The rest of them tilted their heads’ back, gazed at the moon with soft eyes of reverence, and roared, purred, chirped, clicked, and hummed in song.  
  
It was all about giving thanks; not that any of them, weres and shifters, were actually bound to the folklore of changing during the full moon. It was a matter of respecting nature, especially since the mystical powers that be had been more than generous in connecting them all into nature’s landscape. They felt her shifts and changes with the same intensity of the twisting, snapping and unfurling of their human bodies to new animal forms.  
  
So, he clicked his tongue again and warbled a low purr that rode above the lapping of the tide against the shore until it sank beneath the swaying waves like a skipped stone. Brian O’Conner had much to be thankful for this night.  
  
And Mother Moon should only get her just desserts.  
  
He tipped his nearly empty bottle of Corona skyward, mouth sitting just low enough beneath the arch of the moon to resemble a pedestal, and it was only fitting, he thought.  
  
Brian wasn’t the religious sort. Traditional religion hadn’t factored his life much until he’d met Dom and Mia, and became at ease with praying before meals and directing all of those last second hopes to someone in particularly. But he’d be a liar if he said he’d never prayed before; there was always Mother Moon, shining above him, sharing secretive smiles that waxed and waned, and settled under his skin, providing solace when none was to be found.  
  
This toast was for her. Because reflexes unborn to normal humans wouldn’t have gotten them so close to that bus or weaving around and bumping it with such precision that a few cases of whiplash and bumps and bruises were the only injuries to come from their breakout.  
  
He should’ve been sleeping with the others, but the last of his adrenaline hummed in his veins, demanding a final release. So he figured a few minutes alone with him in communion with Mother Moon was all he needed to unwind—uncurl his tail and take the arch out of his back, so to speak, before passing out with the rest.  
  
The breeze was gentle, so consistent that he could have set his watch to each soft flutter. All the palm fronds whipped east in a low murmur. The sound behind him came from the west. It was a small interruption in the rolling applause from the tree line that caused him to incline his head just the slightest and scent the wind.  
  
It was faint, coming from southwest behind him, though it disappeared just as quickly as he caught it.  
  
The jumbled scent like a knot mixed with oil, steel, sweat, and heavy male musk could only be one of them. He didn’t call out then, knowing that either Dom would end up beside him or try to pounce on him from the back.  
  
His ear twitched as the wind rolled off the sea again, cutting across the vacant beach and catching the echo of Dom’s booted footfalls in the sand.  
  
Brian remained still as Dom drew up alongside of him. When the heavy weight of Dom’s eyes landed on the side of his face, Brian looked over. “You up for a run?” Dom asked.  
  
Brian smiled, swallowed what was left in his bottle and dropped it in the sand.  
  
Was he up for a race?  
  
With Dom?  
  
Always.  
  
“So, we doing this by two or fours?” Because with two legs, he’d have the advantage by virtue of being just a bit taller and much leaner. On fours, it might be closer, but Dom had the advantage there.  
  
Dom snorted and set his bottle besides Brian’s. “What do you think?” Fours it was. Just about anyone could run on two legs; the ability to run on four was a privilege, one that wasn’t exercised as often as it could’ve been due to the confined spaces and the presence of watchful eyes in the city. Here on an empty beach in Mexico, they could slip out of their clothes, free their skin and just be natural.  
  
With no further preamble, Brian toed off his shoes and socks as Dom pulled his shirt overhead. Over the low wind, their movements sang out a series of clicks, zips, yawns of cotton being removed from skin. Then they were down to their bare skins.  
  
Brian trailed his eyes over Dom in a casual manner. Despite the night and the shadows that cut across Dom’s skin in an eerie pattern similar to his shifter stripes, Brian could see all of him. And what he was saw, an understatement at best, was impressive. He tossed his head back, making the lines of his neck more prominent, but kept his eyes locked on Dom’s during the silent inspection. It was a gesture of challenge---a non-threatening one.  
  
Other guys—normal humans would have balked, bitched, blushed and have been eight kinds of uncomfortable standing next to one their bros while naked under the moonlight, while looking each other over. This moment wasn’t about sex—not yet anyway, on Brian’s part at least. It was about placating that natural instinct that called like to like, and the need to make sure that all that were alike were indeed healthy and whole.  
  
Brian didn’t look away then, just pulled his eyes up to meet Dom’s, who wasn’t completely finished with his inspection. “Grassy field on the other side of the eastern tree line sound okay to you?” Brian asked, finally getting Dom’s attention.  
  
“Yeah, sounds fine.”  
  
They’d run like this once before. Just the two of them. Back then, Brian had been a lone were trying to fit into a close knit pack. But it was Dom who’d pulled him aside after a round of loaded conversation and seaside shrimp to run. By shifter customs, the invitation was a big deal, a step above being a friend of the pack and just below being actual member of the pack. And a run between the two of them was intimate, so significant like the pulls of the moon to the two-natured.  
  
Even now, Brian shook his head as he prepared to run. He’d let Dom take the lead since it was his suggestion, but Brian would be with him every step of the way.  
  
Brian spared Bilkins a stray thought, because the older agent had been supremely sly even for a fox. In order to keep shifters and weres a secret, there was a tendency of the two-natured to enter into law enforcement or the military. Bilkins handpicked him for hijacking assignment, not due to his skills as a driver and undercover, but the fact that he was a were. The old fox had known that Dom’s team, really his family, had been a ragtag pack.  
  
Had he known that Dom and Mia were tigers? Brian had smelled it the first day at the market. So distinct and rare, Dom had looked up the moment Brian realized what they were, and he’d been just as surprised that Brian was the same. Three tigers in the same place. What were the odds?  
  
Brian couldn’t dwell on the question as Dom took off on the sand towards the trees. Brian followed, his eyes focusing on Dom as his legs contracted, back lengthened and his shoulders broadened gradually until he leapt and disappeared into the low brush surrounding the base of the trees. Brian gave himself over to the pull of instinct and the electric current running under his skin. As his body changed, he continued to follow Dom’s scent through the dark until he reached the edge of the grassy patch.  
  
He crept up and hung his head low between his shoulders and sniffed the air. Dom had a natural ability to blend into the shadows better than any were Brian had ever seen. Brian canted his head, flicking his ears to listen to the wind for any trace of Dom.  
  
He found nothing.  
  
He sank low to the ground, just a few centimeters off the dirt and watched the grass. His eyesight was far sharper now, finding pockets of light unseen to human eyes. Then, his eyes found two floating points of metallic silver. He’d found Dom.  
  
Feeling a surge of triumph, Brian stalked quickly away from the trees. As he entered the grass, his gait quickened into a purposefully quiet trot, and he remained focused on Dom’s silver glowing eyes, which drew nearer to him.  
  
They were racing towards each other head on, but both had already been determined that neither would back off nor veer off to the side. Almost to the center of the field, Brian sprang low, losing Dom’s eyes for a split second before he launched in the air, legs and paws spread to grab onto Dom who’d leapt out at him. With paws spread and claws barely protruding, they held each other, tumbling into a knot of fur, blurring in flashes of orange and white above the reedy blades of grass.  
  
Dom flipped Brian, landing him on his back, but Brian sprang out of the attempt to pin him, and held tightly to Dom, who he sent on his back in the next second. Dom’s tail was long and hard like the rest of him; it whipped out, catching Brian across the nose, drawing a low hiss in alarm.  
  
This was supposed to be a bit of play, just a reprieve to loosen up and blow off some steam. Brian leapt over Dom’s back, cleared him clean like a giant hurdle and made his way for the edge of the field, where the grass was lower and less thick. And Dom followed every step of the way.  
  
Brian chased the perimeter of the field, before feinting left and zipping right into another smaller concentric circle. See, in were form they were guided by instinct, but had access and the capacity to process memories and knowledge from human form. His zig-zagging path was inspired by one of the last rounds of Playstation Madden he played against Jesse. Running in short sprinting bursts, Dom could keep up but couldn’t pass him. Yep, he’d finally won.  
  
That was until Dom backed off and redirected himself towards one of the heavier trees to his right. Dom rocketed towards the tree, dug his claws in to keep him in place and bounced off his sudden perch to land squarely on top of Brian. He brought Brian down so hard into the dirt that Brian yelped like cub whose tail had been nipped for the first time.  
  
Okay, Brian could admit that he had the speed, but clearly Dom had the weight—just the sheer size to leave him breathless after pouncing on him. Dom nipped the scruff of his neck playfully before rolling off into the dirt, belly-up, beside Brian. Wanting to express no hard feelings, Brian flicked his tongue out catching the edge of Dom’s, who flashed him a feral almost incandescent grin. That smile clearly said _better luck next time_ and rolled his head about accepting the challenge.  
  
Even like this, in a space where there were no words used to communicate, where only action and instinct did the speaking for them, it all remained so easy between them. By all outcomes, Brian was an outsider, one that had interceded in Dom’s pack repeatedly. Instead of being driven out, he’d been received—not quite welcomed, but allowed inside, permitted to be close to Dom. By pack law, Dom could have gone for his throat at any time, adjured him so that he would like a ghost to the rest, or struck him with the tag omega. Instead, he hadn’t; Dom just let Brian come and stay.  
  
That connection between them tugged more insistently when it were form. Without the complex layers of human life, the tether anchoring one to the other all but vibrated and glowed, demanding attention, and its tangible pull forced them to entwine from paws to tail. There was no fighting this, no resisting because Brian knew they were meant for each other.  
  
Brian hummed some tuneless song in his throat. Dom nuzzled him there, along the thick white fur at his throat. He listened to the song, letting it wash over him, lulling him into a state of calm that he hadn’t felt for a long time. Five years to be exact. It was a low song full of pauses and raspy, undulating growls that sank deep beneath his skin. Dom disentangled himself from Brian; instead of backing off, he draped his head over Brian’s. He waited to see if he’d be bucked off, but Brian remained calm. The song continued, now rumbling across Dom’s throat as well.  
  
Such a beautiful sound. It fit easily into the neat space of Dom’s chest beside his sister’s laugh and the Charger’s engine revving to full strength.  
  
Dom was once again mateless after Letty’s death, and Brian had never been mated either. This wasn’t a regular run; it had been a dance. Brian had proven that he was once again that he was the only one within Dom’s sphere capable of running with him and truly keeping up.  
  
The run was the start of a mating dance. One that would be finished before they reached their final destination and the new freedom that came with it.  
  
That invisible pulsing wire demanded attention. The song was enough to keep him close for the night, but the thread would keep pulling them back together, beckoning to be examined, with them ultimately mated to satisfy their mutual attraction. Brian’s scent had always been unabashedly interested, though Dom never called him on it. Not like Letty, Mia or Vince wanted him to. Instinct, which guided him through to worlds, told him not to. Even his gut said let it ride.  
  
Now that years have passed, with them once again alone, coming down from the adrenaline spike at the end of their race, he inhaled Brian’s scent that seemed somehow more refined. It was stronger, intoxicating, lusty—all heady because it was so thick that it clouded his head and made him drunk.  
  
Brian was special. Everything. The fearlessness. The certainty. Those insane blue eyes that were unwavering in either form never looked away from Dom. Brian was a lone were, an alpha in his own right, and any challenge was issued with the desire to win and go toe to toe with Dom until one of them won.  
  
Dom rubbed his head over Brian’s, rubbing off his scent to mark Brian as his. Brian continued his purring tune, only slowing the tempo to let Dom catch up. Together, the low tune rumbled between them, synchronized and pitched perfect.  
  
It was the perfect song for a mating dance like theirs.  
  


* * *

  
  
“Where you been, O’Conner?”  
  
Dom was pissed. Usage of last names was the precursor to spitting and snarling. His mate just couldn’t let him catch a break. The last time they’d gone all rumble in the jungle, Mia swore she’d tase them both and sell them to Siegfried and Roy as their new pet attraction.  
  
Brian swept his gaze across the floor, looking for a possible distraction, but trying to distract Dom from chewing out his ass would be like distracting a rabid dog from a steak. The floor held no car parts, save for the mangled corpse of the Charger, which was in a sad taste of being half cannibalized. Without a were’s nose, the warehouse would appear terminally abandoned, all traces that anyone had been here were gone to the naked (human) eye. Oil stains and skid marks notwithstanding.  
  
After a slow twist around, Brian watched the floating balls of quicksilver emerge from the darkness with an eerie smoothness. Fluid steps forward revealed Dom from the shadows. The darkness morphed and rolled around Dom like a painter’s sheet  
  
Brian was incapable of tiptoeing around things. He tended to vault head over ass into just about everything. “Had something to take care of,” he finally replied. Being vague wasn’t recommended when dealing with a pissed off alpha or a mate, heaven forbid one that happened to be both.  
  
“You missed the boat. Told Mia you’d be back and just didn’t show up.” As Dom stalked forward silent like a panther, no pun intended, he growled, “Not smart thinking.”  
  
“I was wrapping up a last bit of business.” Whooping tail was always a matter of _business_. This time it was exclusively personal.  
  
Dom sniffed. “That’s what they’re callin’ it now? Smells like you got up to something all right.”  
  
“You can’t seriously…” Dom was clearly messing with him. “Whatever, no, this was a dispute of fang and claw.” Otherwise, there was no reason Brian would wrap himself up in Hobbs like his personal bath sponge.  
  
He was suddenly crowded then as Dom moved on quiet, swift feet to crowd him against the back wall. “You scratched him up real good, huh?” He dipped his head, running the tip of his nose up the long cords in Brian’s neck, sniffing lightly along the way, and making sour faces as he picked up the foreign traces of Hobbs on Brian’s skin.  
  
Brian relaxed, letting Dom have his way. It wasn’t like Brian was actually opposed to Dom’s inspection. He was down for any opportunity to have Dom this close--better yet, alone. “I may have gotten a little claw happy.”  
  
“A little?” Dom snorted, then laughed. “Hobbs is a big boy. I hope you didn’t chip a nail taking him down.”  
  
Brian shook his head at Dom and his jokes. Laugh now, but he would have been proud if he’d seen what was left of Hobbs in that crack motel on the other side of town. “You wanna to find out?” Brian spread his feet, thrusting his hips forward to meet Dom’s. “I left plenty of marks on Hobbs. Lost my clothes too. He was all over me,” he said, deliberately draw out the words, putting unwelcomed images in Dom’s head. “Had to roll on top to keep him down, but he kept jerking me around...”  
  
“I’m sure he did,” Dom replied as he watched Brian carefully. He was on guard, barely straddling the line between alert human stance and animal. And all that attention only made Brian hot.  
  
Brian shrugged coolly, just a bit too nonchalant. “Nobody ever said cat fights weren’t dangerous…”  
  
Hobbs was a strange cat. He threw his scent around like he was in heat. Fighting or fucking was how it went in their way of life. Brian egged Dom on, knowing that Dom was just as possessive of Brian as Brian was with Dom.  
  
“Hobbs smelled ready to go. Could have easily got it in if I was into the big, sweaty, scowling type.” He was attracted to the big, scowling type, but sweating unless it was in the process of a good run or sex was a real turn off.  
  
Growling low in his throat, Dom grabbed Brian, pushing his body closer to Brian’s and trapping him thoroughly. In each touch, there was a demonstration of _mine_ and the staggering expectations in the returned touch that were equally possessive and wanting, saying more than _yours, but mine too_. There was more than raw instinct and the magnetic pull of animal attraction pulling between them—it was gravity.  
  
When they were together, it sounded more animal than human: all low growls, purrs, howls and the occasional sighing whimper. They did fast and hard, tended to move along the lines of epic universe-shaking, flying off the axis of everything sex, and sometimes they did tender. No matter the pace, any meeting of flesh was all them. They challenged and took, shared each other unlike most pairs.  
  
Maybe, Hobbs had been somewhat right in his snotty assessment. They were different; they were equals. Dom was pack alpha, not because Brian wasn’t strong enough to wrestle control from him. He was the alpha because Brian _was_ strong enough to follow his lead without bucking back. Though Brian still followed his own beat when inspired, and Dom respected him for it. He accepted Brian’s unflagging independence—his tenacity and fearlessness, even if it chaffed against his natural instinct to lead and protect all within his pack.  
  
Dom’s lips, wide and generous, planted lingering kisses on Brian’s neck and up to his cheeks. He wavered though before taking Brian’s lips, shiny and waiting impatiently for Dom’s mouth, and remained just below the strong border of Brian’s jaw.  
  
He nuzzled the skin, nipped ever so softly, and Brian rolled his hips forward, rubbing himself against Dom, showing once again that it was Dom that did this to him. Set him on fire from his head to his toes and controlled his dick like it was leashed to his hip.  
  
Brian touched back as Dom continued his deliberate remarking of Brian’s skin through the paths of scent, taste and touch. Brian accepted every shifting caress, the faint flicks of tongue that seared his lips and the corners of his mouth, and forceful wave of Dom’s body as he rolled over Brian like a tide, intent on washing him with the smell of him.  
  
Before a thick thigh could be slotted between his legs, Brian would push back, and return each show of affection in triplicate. Tonight had been about exorcising his jealousy and fighting for his mate, but there would always be others. Dom’s magnetism was sure to attract many, and Brian would be ready for any and all challengers that couldn’t read the clear signs that all but screamed _step off_ when the two of them were together. And then, there were times like this where Dom had be reassured that Brian wasn’t going anywhere; that the interest constantly thrown his way wouldn’t snag him and lead him away from Dom’s side.  
  
As Brian settled a foot between Dom’s and brought him down to the cool concrete with Brian on top, dropping playful kisses as he worked his way down to Dom’s belt, Brian smiled. For all that fear and instinct worried that either would stray, neither was actually going anywhere. Hobbs was right: they were rare and more so than for just being tigers. This connection between them that anchored them through thick and thin was more than kismet; it was soul deep.  
  
They weren’t dumb pack animals, contrary to Hobb’s belief. They were partners, a pair, mates, and a pack. Family above all else. Their bond was soul-bound—like one jumps off a cliff and the other had to follow. If Dom jumped, he would follow, had already followed.  
  
Brian should have worried about where life was leading them, but he didn’t. Grinding against Dom on the floor, intoxicated by the scents of his peaking sweat and the undercurrent of _otherness_ and the feeling of his hands was enough to keep Brian thoroughly occupied, and eager to make Dom feel just as drunk.  
  
They’d get out of Rio before Hobbs twenty-four window closed. So far gone that the wind wouldn’t hold a trace of them; once again blending like shadows in the dark.  
  
Their voices echoed off the bare walls, putting each touch and response into surround sound, which was the only appropriate showcasing of their passion.  
  
As Brian took his turn in exploring the vibrating terrain of Dom’s skin from his neck to his nipples, Dom purred in satisfaction. Brian did this to Dom—no one else could touch this moment.  
  
So if another long jump waited for them, then Brian felt secure in making that leap, knowing that Dom would be right next to him. The roads ahead might eventually run out, but they wouldn’t run into any dead ends.  
  
He kissed Dom then, hard and deep, humming that nameless little tune that they’d come to recognize as their song. As long as they had this, nothing else mattered.  
  
Because, at the end of the day, cats always landed on their feet.  
  
The End


End file.
